The Tripura of Bangladesh: A Sociolinguistic Survey

The Tripura people collectively speak several language varieties. This survey report gives an
account of the sociolinguistic research that took place among the Tripura in Bangladesh,
including the Usoi Tripura (who refer to their language as Kau Brung), the Debbarma Tripura
(who call their language Kok Borok), the Riang (who sometimes refer to their language as
Kau Bru), and ten groups of Tripura from Khagrachari district (who also often call their
language Kok Borok). The goals of the research were to better understand linguistic variation,
language attitudes, intelligibility in select varieties, current language and community
development efforts, and bilingual abilities among the Tripura people of Bangladesh. Tools
used in this research were interviews, wordlists, questionnaires, and stories recorded in two
varieties (Naitong Kok Borok from Khagrachari, Bangladesh, and Debbarma Kok Borok
from Agartala, India). Fieldwork for this research took place from March through July 2007.